Chris Collins / Corbis

What do you do with an almost-three-year-old who fights with you? And when I say "fights with you" I mean "goes all Mike Tyson and bites an ear off your head" kind of fighting. 'Cause I've got a serious fighter on my hands here. She is not, let's be clear, a hitter or a scratcher or anything violent like that. But when she adopts a cause, she digs in. Like a steamshovel. Relentless. Unwavering. Much like when, say, Mother Teresa set up shop in Calcutta and never once considered buckling under the oppressive weight of her deeply-felt mission to bring succour to the impoverished ... once my child decides she wants a lollipop, it's all over until she gets her lollipop. Or at the very least she digs in until someone's daddy dies in a steaming puddle of his own urine. Whichever needs to come first.

Take this morning, for example. And when I say "take this morning," I mean "remove it from my prefrontal cortex so I need never remember it again." Ma Breeder went into the office bright and early, leaving me in my still-slumbering state of blissful non-awakehood. Of course, my schizophrenic brain was only capable of half-delighting in the luxurious decadence of a big empty bed. The other half was anxiety-struck in anticipation of the yelling that was guaranteed to emerge from the Chamber of the Spawn. And then it came: MOOOOMMMMMYYYYY!!!

Me, stumbling in: Hi baby. Gooooodmorning!
Her: I said "MOMMY!"
Me: I know, banana. But Mommy's at work.
Her: I want Mommy.
Me: She's at work.
Her: But I want Mommy. Because I need my Mommy.
Me: I know, babyducks. But she's at work.
Her: I want Mommy.
Me: She's at work. Let's have breakfast!
Her: NO I CAN'T HAVE BREAKFAST BECAUSE I want Mommy.
Me: OK, well she's not here and I am. Or should I leave?
Her, whining in a frequency that has been known to paralyze elephants: Nooooooooo. Don't leave me!
Me: OK then! Let's change that diaper!
Her: I want mommy.
Me: I swear to you, if I could give you mommy right now, I would. I'd give you eight mommies. On steroids and estrogen. But she's at work.
Her: I want Mommy.
Me: FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY AND JUST AND GOOD WHY DON'T YOU BELIEVE ME?!!! She's at work.
Her: I want some gum.
Me: She's at wo-- oh. Gum? You can't have gum until you have breakfast. [This is how rules get made up: on the fly. -- ed.]
Her: GIVE ME SOME GUM. Where's Mommy?

It's hard to know how to react here. It's very easy to escalate and start yelling, like for real.

Apparently some 3-year-olds are more advanced than others. Mine, for example, has trouble sorting out the differences between "today" and "next week" and "my birthday." For her, it's all a blur.

Other kids, however, are all up to date on the latest on the gubernatorial crisis in Albany. Watch this clip: here we learn that "everybody at school is talking about" the Eliot Spitzer scandal. You know, the one in which he paid $80,000 for his friend, Kristen, who was on the show "The Girl is Wild." The poor governor had to quit before he was peached.

New York City kids are some sophisticated tykes, I tell you what. Still. Personally, I prefer the rehash of Star Wars. Something about coaching a little girl to describe Hookergate smacks of trying a wee bit too hard to get a laugh.

The New York Times magazine's cover story today couldn't be better timed. It is Toy Fair weekend, after all, so what better moment than to ask "why do we play, anyway?" What is play? What are the evolutionary benefits to play? Is it essential? Are there any drawbacks to play? The growing body of research is still largely inconclusive, but I did like the article's conclusion:

"Animal findings about how play influences brain growth suggest that playing, though it might look silly and purposeless, warrants a place in every child’s day. Not too overblown a place, not too sanctimonious a place, but a place that embraces all styles of play and that recognizes play as every bit as essential to healthful neurological development as test-taking drills, Spanish lessons or Suzuki violin."

Amen to that. Three cheers to unstructured, ABC-free play.

So the kid has been weirding us out lately.

Clearly, she's processing the fact that mama has a little tiny baby inside her tummy. This has got to be tough news to digest when you've only been around for 2.6 years. Throws your whole worldview for a loop, I'd imagine. Indeed she's starting to short circuit a bit. Our child has taken to alternating from pretending to be a tiny little baby herself to pretending to be pregnant herself to, my personal favorite, pretending to be both a tiny little baby and pregnant at the same time! Babies making babies, indeed. Not even 3 and already she is making allusions to my main man Sly Almighty.

Some examples of this sublime weirdness: she crawls around. A lot. This is something she didn't even do when it was age-appropriate--she was never a crawler. But now, she's crawling the skin on her knees down to bone. And, on top of that, now she refuses to answer us unless we address her as "tiny baby." So, for example, we say "come here and eat your oatmeal." She, if she actually deigns to answer at all, says "have to say tiny little baby!" So we say "come here and eat your oatmeal, tiny baby." And then she crawls over. And then she refuses to eat unless we spoonfeed her "like a baby."

This, you might imagine, while initially quite charming becomes eye-gougingly annoying with a quickness. An eye-gouging that is, rest assured, performed with baby-safe rubber-tipped spoons that change color if--GOD FORBID--the oatmeal you are about to stuff down your "tiny baby's" broken-record gullet is two degrees too warm.

Ahem. Sorry about that. I, Breeder does not endorse stuffing anything down anyone's gullet, broken record or otherwise. Of course.

Now, the other night, as Ma Breeder was giving le bebe a bath, the kid started rubbing her tummy. She said, "I have a tiny baby, like you. So you have to be careful." And then she pretended to pull the baby out of her navel and show it to mama. "See?" Mama, being the trooper that she is, said "are you a tiny baby or do you have a tiny baby inside you?" The answer, naturally, was "I'm a tiny baby. Yeah. And I have a tiny baby in my tummy." Mama: "Oh, well let me give your tiny baby a bath too." To which the kid replied, in a voice that echoed off our tiled walls for seven hours, "NO MAMA. I AM ONLY PRETENDING TO HAVE A BABY."

Anyway, it goes on like this. When she's being a tiny baby (and we want to avoid The Shrieking) we have to rock her, give her milk in a sippy cup as if it's a tiny bottle, carry her everywhere. When the child is feeling pregnant, we have to be careful with her tummy because there's a baby in there and she's going to throw up. Like mama. In conclusion, we are living with a schizophrenic dwarf with a hair-trigger scream reflex.

The weirdest and, I'll be honest, most gradually irritating thing about the child right now: whenever she's in "tiny baby" mode, she crawls around, yes. But she does so with her mouth wide open. She largely refuses to speak. She crawls right up to you and grabs your leg. She looks up at you, mouth all agape and ... begins panting. Like a winded puppy.

You say: "Hi, kid. Why are you grabbing my jeans and breathing like a demented obscene caller?" She pants, HRUUH HURRGGH GHHR. "Uh. Why are you breathing like that?" More hyperventilating. "Sorry, why are you breathing like that, tiny little baby?" more heavy respiration. "Babies don't do that in real life, you know." Pant-Pant-Pant. "Where's your mother? Go grab her leg and breathe on her." Huff-puff-heave-gasp. "STOP IT OR I'LL START WEEPING!"

This has gone on for weeks now. Lots of heavy breathing at our place. Both my bride and I have consulted each other: "Do you know why she's breathing like that?" "No, do you?" "No, I only pant like that when you're wearing your lederhosen."

Finally, I had my eureka moment. Framed on the wall of our child's room is the birth announcement we sent out on the occasion of her, well, birth. Included with the announcement was an excellent snapshot my wife took of the baby yawning or possibly passing some excellent gas -- but it looks like she's laughing ... or, i guess, panting. Here it is. This is the image the child apparently associates with being a baby; it is, at least, the exact face she makes when she's being a "tiny baby":

 

I'm sitting here at work, past midnight, my eyes are blazing red burning balls of fiery fireballs. The primary results are slowly trickling in. California--or as MSNBC's resident gourmand pundit Chris Matthews calls it, "the big enchilada"--is still a week or so away from being tallied. Good thing I have packed a change of clothes, toothpaste and plenty of whiskey. I am prepared for history. I am toggling between Newsweek's live Webcast (which you are surely watching, no?), CNN, various blogs and a VH1 special about celebrity sex toys.

I was unable to vote in today's primary because I am an independent voter (YOU CAN'T PUT ME IN A BOX, PEOPLE!) and we are not allowed to vote in primaries for some reason which mystifies and enrages me. I had wanted to take my daughter to vote with me. We've voted together before, but that was for 'Make Me a Supermodel,' so that doesn't quite count.

To my editors' credit, I was told to report to duty at 5 pm, since I was expected to stay until the bitter end. So I slept in. HAHAH! Sorry, no. That was hilarious. No. I woke with the kid at 6:50 and, when my babymama went to work, I took the kid to her music class.Normally our sitter takes her, since she's usually on duty Tuesdays. But today I took the opportunity to check out what kind of filth the degenerate music teacher was filling my child's brain with.

So, fine, there's nothing cuter than 20 hyperactive 3-year-olds not following their music teacher's instructions (I will note, though, that the grown up parents dutifully busted every dance move and belted every TRA-LA-LA requested of them. Oh, Dignity, will we ever meet again?) 

The sitter took over, I went to work. When mommy came home, she took the child to our neighborhood polling place. It turns out I was fortunate to not have been eligible to vote today. I wanted to give her a lesson in civic duty! I wanted her to learn the solemn importance of our democratic social contract. I wanted her to touch the grimy voting machine so I didn't have to. But these tasks fell to my wife. Who took F to the local public school. When mom tried to take her into the booth, she proceeded to melt down with a vehemence that would make Britney stop and take notice. I wasn't there but I imagine it went a little like this: NO I CAN'T GO IN THERE NOOOOOOOOOO!!! I DON'T WANT TO VOTE!! Only, you know, times 20 to the power of skull-crushing.

And this is who we are trying to save the planet for? Some gratitude, kid.

This officially being the second trimester--the pregnancy's golden age--my wife is finally feeling much better. Gone are the days of power puking eight, nine times. Gone is the weight loss. Gone is the scary cancer-ward vibe of our conjugal chamber. Better yet: gone are the disgusting chewable meds. No more drugs. Don't get me wrong, the nausea is still there. She does barf, sometimes daily. She'll wake up with an empty stomach, ralph and get on with the morning. It's impressive how thoroughly she's insinuated reverse peristalsis into her daily routine: wake, boot, rally, break fast. Feels like college again! Even our daughter has gotten into the groove: every time mama goes to the bathroom she asks "she gonna throw up? I wanna see!" Little angel! More worrisome: I was giving said angel a bath the other night. As the water was draining down the tub she leaned over its edge and said "now you have to dry me off. AND NOW I HAVE TO THROW UP! BLLOOUURRGH!!!" Then she spat and wiped her mouth with her forearm! It's so adorable the way they imitate us, isn't it?

Anyway. Nineteen weeks. Twenty-one (or so) to go. Here are some things I've learned about week 19 of pregnancy. From pregnancy.org:

Your baby has the same awake and sleep patterns of a newborn. So, basically, mama has an albino lizardfish in her belly that's waking up every two hours and screaming its head off. I'd be a little queasy too.
Scalp hair becomes apparent this week. No word on back hair. Or, more importantly if it's a boy: moustache-ability.
The milk teeth buds have already developed. Apparently babies have two rows of teeth: there are milk teeth and, behind them, the permanent teeth grow in. So mama's actually carrying a little shark. A hairy little albino lizardshark with two rows of teeth. You know, like in "Alien." I know I'll sleep well tonight!
Your baby is swallowing amniotic fluid and his or her kidneys are making urine. Let's take this to the next logical step, shall we: it's swallowing amniotic fluid. It's urinating. Presumably it's urinating into its amniotic sac. Which means its swallowing its urine. Which means my fuzzy little sleep-shrieking albino lizardshark Alien spawn, not even born yet, has a bizarre urine-drinking ritual it practices before ... oh I don't know, it goes on its cannibalistic murdering sprees.
It's around 6.02 inches (15.3cm) and 8.47 ounces (240gm). That's 6 inches and 8.5 ounces of PURE MAYHEM!

So pregnancy.org is creeping me out a little. Let's see what the parenting channel at ivillage has to say (aside, of course, from the pop-up congratulating me on being the first-ever male to visit the parenting channel at ivillage).

At 15 centimeters crown to rump, and weighing eight ounces, your baby is getting big! "Crown to rump?" Is this a baby or a pony? I can't wait to send out our birth announcement: "Meet our new child. Sixteen inches from whithers to brisket!"
Organs of reproduction are developing rapidly, getting ready to sustain future generations. Not even born and already you're giving him a massive guilt trip for not yet giving us grandchildren! That's just great, ivillage.
If your baby is positioned just right on an ultrasound scan, the tiny penis is easily identifiable. Awesome. I hope it is a boy, so his whole life I can be all "hey, son, why don't you and your tiny penis get ready for dinner?" "Yo, junior, don't you and your tiny penis have homework to do?" "Son, on this your wedding day, you have made me very proud of you. Now go forth and sustain future generations with your tiny penis."

WHEREAS this is a parenting blog about, among other things, parenting; and

WHEREAS I am the parent of a child (or so I am told) who is nearly three, and

WHEREAS said child is currently undergoing an exceedingly lax course of potty training, and

WHEREAS it is written into my parent-blogging contract that I mention poop (in an endearingly-cute-yet-raffishly-ironic manner) a bare minimum of once a month, and

WHEREAS, let's face it, poop is funny,

BE IT SO ENACTED that I tell you, dear readers, that my child has pooped into her potty!! For the first time! She said "I need to poop" and so we plopped her on the potty and she pooped!! This happened twice over the weekend! I have never before used so many exclamation points on the topic of poop!!! Even when I had the stomach flu in Vegas!

Generally it has gone more like this: child goes from playing manically to sulking in the corner. Parent asks child "are you pooping?" Child says "no." Parent says "if you need to poop, just say so and you can sit on the potty!" Child says "I'M NOT POOPING. OK?" Parent says "OK, well, come back and join us." Child comes back, plays for three seconds and announces "I can't sit on the potty because I have a dirty diaper." Parent smacks self on forehead.

But there it was: From "I have to poop" to solid potty action. Boom! The second time went less smoothly. F announced her need to cop a squat yesterday morning as we were getting dressed. ("I'm listening to my body! You hear it?") She sat on the toilet for 15 minutes. "It's not coming out," she'd announce and then climb off her throne. Then flush anyway. Then two seconds later: "Oh yeah, I have to poop." Back into the saddle. Then mommy had to go to work. Daddy (that would be me) had to get dressed. So I let her sit on the potty, wait, climb off, remount. Every time I poked my head in to check her progress she would shout "NO DADDY, I NEED PRIVACY" and then get off. And then get back on. Flush. Repeat.

As I was choosing a shirt I heard a little voice announce "I did it, Daddy! I pooped in the potty!" I jogged in to congratulate her/hose her down but before I reached the bathroom she added: "And the floor!" I quickened my pace.

It was all true: the potty, the floor. But there was one other thing. In her pride and excitement she neglected to mention that she had also stepped in it. And walked around. In my house.

Barefoot.

We have somehow managed to keep our daughter alive for just a tad longer than two-and-a-half years. As you have seen, her cognitive powers, while formidable, are not yet fully matured. So it isn't surprising that she does not yet fully grasp all the implications of the fact that mama done got knocked up again. Hell, I haven't fully grasped them myself yet and I've got 30 years on her. Oh, sure, she'll tell you her mommy's going to have a baby if you press her on the matter. But does she really understand what that means? That she'll have a new, smaller person in the house who SHE gets to boss around for a change? I don't think she's got it. I suspect it won't take long for her to figure it out.

She knows that "mommy is sick" because we, unfortunately, have to remind her of this fact almost every time she wants to be picked up by, play with, go outside in the company of, have her diaper changed by, or otherwise look at mommy. When mommy was lying on the couch the other day, something that mommy has gotten very good at indeed lately (not that daddy isn't thoroughly exhausted from doing everything around here all the time I mean can a brother get a break once in a while, or does he have to start puking too to get some time to himself ... ahem, yes I really am this impossibly small and tiny), the daughter walked up to her. "Mommy sick?"

"Yes, sweetie," replied my long-suffering bride. "Mommy is sick."
"That's OK because mommy gonna have a baby!"
"That's right! Can you pat mommy's stomach? ... GENTLY!"

Even the coldest of cold, cold hearts--a species of frosty souls hitherto known only to Hank Williams and his spiritual brethren--would melt at the sight of mother and daughter, bonding over a budding belly. My child patted her mother. She looked up, touchingly, at mama. She asked "Baby's in there?"

"Yes, sweetie. The baby is my tummy."
Lifting mama's shirt: "I WANT TO SEE IT!!!!!" 
"No, honey, the baby is inside mama."
"I WANNA GO IN!"
"Ah. You already had your turn."
"Why?"

Cute, right? A little bitty Thomas Wolfe learning that you can't go home to the uterus again, no matter how compelling its siren song. Anyway, lesson learned: there is a baby inside mommy. It's in her tummy. This much has been retained. How do I know?

Well.

The other morning--very, very early in the morning--the child awoke yelling, as is her want (and, increasingly, mine). We hear lots of "mommy" and "daddy" and "I'm awake" and "I got a booger!" After a few minutes we go into her room together and she's on her back, rubbing her little 2-year-old tum.

"Hi mommydaddy! I have a baby in my tummy!"
"Oh, really? Who put it there?"
Hoisting up her little stuffed sheep: "Lammie!"
"Your toy lamb put a baby inside you?"
"Yeah! I'm sick now!"

So apparently my daughter is having unprotected encounters with stuffed farm animals. They grow up so fast, don't they? Clearly daddy needs to have a chat with Lammie.

According to Wikipedia, with the c um hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy, one makes a premature conclusion about causality after observing only a correlation between two or more factors. It can be expressed as follows:

* A occurs in correlation with B.
* Therefore, A causes B.

There is a correlation between the two, sure, but not necessarily causation.

You try explaining this to a toddler!

I awake as I do every day: Just as the sun is coming up and the bluebirds have begun to gently serenade me with their morningsong (which sounds astonishingly like Haydn's Flute Concerto in D Major), my daughter begins caterwauling. "MOOOOOOOMY. I'm AWAAAAAKE MOMMMY!" Since mommy is busy honing her reverse peristalsis techniques these days, I usually make the bleary-eyed stumble into the kid's room and am usually greeted with "NO DADDY! I NEED MOMMY BECAUSE I AM AWAKE."

"Honey, there is a correlation between the two, but one does not necessarily cause the other. For example, your diaper weighs 22 pounds because you just spent the past 11 hours peeing into it. That is a flawless argument."

"I can't have Daddy change my diaper because I'm two-and-a-half because it's raining outside."

Clearly she is not getting this. Hello vocational school, here we come. To be fair, it was only somewhat recently that she started asking the dreaded "Why" question, so it's understandable that she hasn't fully grasped the concept. What she does seem to intuit is that "why" will prolong the conversation until Daddy starts crying.

"I want gum."
"You can't have any more gum."
"Why?"
"Because you just had some gum."
"Why?"
"Um, because you asked for it politely."
"Why?"
"Because you wanted some, probably. Don't you know? Anyway I gave you a little piece."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
"Why?"
"Because I am the greatest father of all time."
"Why?"
"I see what you're doing. You are trying to break me. Well it won't work."
"Why?"
"Because I am bigger than you. And I can stick my fingers in my ears and go LALALALA!"
"Why?"
"Look, you swallowed your last piece of gum, which you know you're not supposed to do so no gum for you!"
"Why?"
"I just told you why!"
"Why?"
"Here, have the whole pack! And here's some ice cream and bubbles and Dora the Explorer balloons. And some kittens! And here's some director's cut footage of Elmo. Please have mercy on me."
"Why?"

And so it goes. It's an old joke, I know, but it's funny when I type it. Besides, the point here is that my daughter has understood that "Because" is usually the first word that is deployed in response to any "why" question. This does not mean she knows how to deploy it. It's like someone has given her a very dangerous power tool without the benefit of a user's guide. The way she drops the b-word, she is like a blind man with a chainsaw. At a Shriner's convention. She doesn't even need a reason anymore.

We were riding the bus to a friend's house the other day (for an ill-fated play-date. These seem to be occurring with greater frequency in recent months). A stranger smiled at my daughter because she is cuter than any child that has ever existed and will ever live in the future with the possible exception of her forthcoming sibling. (See? Causation!) Anyway, she looks up at this stranger and says "We're on the bus!"

"Yes we are," replies the stranger. 
"Yeah. We're on the bus because my mommy is sick. Because I have poopy pants."

In conclusion, kids are rad.